First Great Western Rail Franchise

Alan Meale Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

We have a number of Members standing, and it is my intention to bring in the Front Benchers from 10.40 am, so can you act with a little bit of brevity?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak towards the end of this most important debate. The tender of the First Great Western franchise is of key interest not just to my constituents in Gloucester and throughout the county of Gloucestershire, but, as we have heard, across the entire south-west region. I hugely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing a debate that is of such importance to, I suspect, about 40 coalition MPs and a handful from the Opposition.

There are six key issues to canter through in relation to the retendering process, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister responsible for rail will be listening carefully, as she has been all morning to the points made by hon. Members. First, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) about thinking long term. A long-term franchise must be good for the region. It requires us all to respond ambitiously in thinking 15 years ahead.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth referred to growth and capacity. Certainly on the London-to-Gloucester line, it is crucial that we have more trains, both in the mornings, inevitably, and in the evenings. There is no service to Gloucestershire after 7.45 pm other than the one that leaves at 11 o’clock at night and arrives the next morning. Additional capacity is therefore very important. I appreciate that there are capacity problems getting into Paddington, but we do need more.

With regard to punctuality, it is worth noting that significant progress was made on the First Great Western service after 2005, but the recent decline or deterioration, which is possibly connected with Network Rail’s failings, needs to be examined.

On where the trains stop and the speed of the service, all First Great Western services currently stop at Gloucester, and that must continue after the redoubling of the Swindon-Kemble line, which is so important to us all. However, it is not obvious to me why every train should stop at every little station on the Cotswold part of the journey. I am thinking about the service being speeded up. It is worth noting that it is slower between Swindon and Gloucester than a car journey, except at peak traffic times.

The Minister will know how grateful we all are to have heard about the plans for electrification to go as far as Swindon on the journey that we are discussing, although not all the way to Gloucester and Cheltenham. We should definitely be considering that within the lifetime of the franchise.

A number of hon. Members mentioned difficulties with fares. The issue involves price and, almost as important, the need to rationalise the number of different fares, so that the process is simpler and easier to understand. The difference between an off-peak and a full-fare single journey between Gloucester and Paddington is the difference between £25 and £85—an enormous multiple.

I should be grateful to the Minister if she said whether the fact that there have been additional carriages on the service in the last year of the franchise will be taken into consideration during the retendering process. I think that that is important. It is also worth asking whether infrastructure at stations can be included in the tendering process. At the moment, we need a new ticket office and revenue protection barriers. Those will be going in shortly, but certainly within the lifetime of the new franchise, we also need to have a separate waiting room and ticket office. That is important for customers at Gloucester.

Overall, the crucial point that I would make, which has been made in different ways by several hon. Members, is that we all agree that train travel—rail travel—is a critical catalyst for growth and a key part of our transport infrastructure. It is true to say that in the south-west it has been rather overlooked in the past and, arguably, in the present, with all the excitement about High Speed 2. I therefore add my voice to those of hon. Members who have already spoken to ask the Minister to look favourably on ways to improve capacity, punctuality, electrification, infrastructure and fare rationalisation on this important line from Paddington to Gloucester and Cheltenham and to support the growth of rail services across Gloucestershire and our region.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Before we hear from the Front Benchers, I point out that there is one hon. Member who stood but was not called. It may be appropriate if Mr Carmichael catches the eye of either one of the Front Benchers if he still wishes to speak.